Jane Austen Manuscript Up For Auction

Jane Austen‘s unpublished manuscript for a novel called The Watsons will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s in London tomorrow.

The manuscript is handwritten by Austen and includes the work alongside her notes and edits. While New York’s Morgan Library and Museum owns the first 12 pages of the work, the rest of the unfinished manuscript will be included in the auction. The Sotheby’s listing describes the pages as loose but kept together in a box. The listing reads: “in total 68 pages plus 6 blanks (these being the versos of the three inserted leaves and the final three pages of the final section), housed in collector’s folding box…”.

The LA Times has more about the book: “It was begun, then abandoned, by Austen in 1804, after she’d drafted Sense and Sensibility but seven years before its publication. Austen got about one-fourth of the way through the manuscript of The Watsons before abandoning the manuscript.”